homeowners insurance water damage
Water Damage Restoration and You
Imagine the following scenario: you’re just getting ready for a hot, relaxing bath when the phone. You dash down the stairs to see who is calling and it’s your teenage daughter saying her car has broken down and she’s stranded on the freeway. In your rush to rescue her, you forget to turn off the bath water. When you return home, your daughter’s safe, but your house is flooded and the water damage is readily apparent!
Now what? An overflowing upstairs bathtub can cause significant water damage affecting several rooms of your home and various structural elements including the bathroom floor, the ceiling of the room below, the walls, carpets, electrical systems, insulation, baseboards, doors, and furnishings. Regardless of how water damage occurs, what’s a homeowner to do?
First, take a deep breath because you have a big job ahead of you, even if you will be hiring a water damage restoration service. First, you’ll need to ensure the safety of your family by taking the necessary safety precautions such as turning off the power to prevent electrocution. Next, stop the water! Depending on the source of the overflow, you may need to use the home’s main water shutoff valve. Next, perform emergency dry out procedures before calling your insurance and a professional water damage restoration expert.
In our example above, you would first turn off the power at the main breaker (making sure that you’re not standing in water when you do so) and then go upstairs where you’ll turn off the bath tub’s faucet. In this case, you’d start mop up procedure upstairs and work your way down. This is because of the simple rules of gravity. After all, if you dry the downstairs first, water will continue to drip from above, defeating you as you go.
Contact your insurance company to see if the water damage is covered by your insurance policy. Water damage claims are tricky to determine coverages, so it never hurts to call. Many policies do cover water overflows such as our bathtub example. Next, call a water damage restoration company for assistance in thoroughly drying out your home and repairing the damage.
Professional water damage restoration help can minimize the damage, especially when you choose a company that promises a fast response. A fast dry out is necessary to prevent mold growth as well as lessen the trauma and inconvenience of a flooded home or business. Water damage restoration goes beyond merely mopping up the mess as structural repairs may be needed such as removing and replacing drywall, cleaning and disinfecting water soaked items, repairing electrical systems, fixing floors, retexturing and repainting the ceiling, and so on.
No matter how your home or business flooded, an experienced water damage restoration expert can help you recover from a flood, roof leak, overflow, or plumbing accident.
By: Mr. Mark Decherd
I am getting jerked around by my homeowners insurance policy, what can I do?
I had coverage for water damage. We did the demo to get rid of the wet moldy drywall ASAP, and are being refunded only $8/hour for our time on that. We had no walls so I hired a VERY low cost worker ($20/hour) to replace them and even his rate was double what the estimate said it would cover. So I called the estimator and he said to send his estimate to a list of his choice contractors, so did—they ALL 100% ignored it. So I called him back and he said they would probably only do it non-a-la-carte, i.e. the whole thing, demo, drywall, tape, mud, float, texture, painting, replacing fixtures. This has stretched out over 2 months and I had to re-do all this MYSELF including the fixtures because we had no bathroom. So the situation is that I KNOW he’s giving me a very lowball estimate and he’s depriving me of a way to find out about that. What should I do now?
I’m assuming you’re not underinsured on your house, and no coinsurance penalty is applying.
You talk to your agent.
You call 10 contractors in the area, and get quotes for the work, in writing, with a breakout of the dollars per person per hour, and hours for the job. You might need to pay them a nomimal fee for this, as you need the quotes on their letterhead.
Then you write to your state insurance department, with the adjuster’s offer for damages, and what the 10 contractors said, in writing, and CC the adjuster, telling the adjuster the fees for the estimates are NOW part of the claim and you expect reimbursement from them. Make sure you tell the insurance commissioner you think that they are “acting in bad faith”. Which *I* think they are, based on the little you’ve said.
Disaster Recovery Center opens in Brick for the victims of the storms, Brick – The Federal Emergency Management Agency has flood center opened a Disaster Recovery here to help property owners seek help due to damage from storms and floods of 12 March to 15 April caused.